Joanne

Lady Gaga - Joanne
Critic Score
Based on 30 reviews
2016 Ratings: #724 / 1004
User Score
2016 Rank: #618
Liked by 120 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

83
Pretty Much Amazing
By abandoning the dance club for the dive bar, she may have tossed aside her status as a pop star once and for all. But Gaga has emerged as something better and truer. Stefani Germanotta is a theatrical rock goddess. And, baby, she was born that way.
80
Drowned in Sound

She remains in a state of full control throughout the album, and by album’s end it’s clear that Gaga has released one of her most dazzling albums to date.

80
The Telegraph
It turns out Gaga is a rock and roll showgirl at heart.
80
NME
Gaga Americana is not the Nashville kind, nor the big-beards sort, but a schlocky, thrill-packed theme-park. When Gaga strips herself back, what’s underneath is just a more streamlined strangeness.
75
A.V. Club

Joanne, Artpop’s proper follow-up, contains no ham-fisted attempts at authenticity. Instead, Gaga tries to find a middle ground between her sophisticated present and glitzy, electropop past.

75
Consequence of Sound

Gaga isn’t naked on Joanne, but she has stripped off the flank steaks and AutoTune. The result is a work that may not close any circles, but instead start the pattern of a new shape: something weird, but compelling, and largely authentic.

75
The Line of Best Fit

A pop album with a capital P, when Gaga talked about stripping back, she obviously meant doing away with the pretensions- Joanne is, unmistakably, still a slick operation.

75
The Young Folks

Gaga hasn’t sounded this alive and believable since Born This Way, and Joanne has much more of a personality than that record.

75
Entertainment Weekly

Joanne is not as brazen and bold as it could have been, but it’s merely a temporary beat in the timeline of an artist who’s earned the right to stray down a path, be it a disco-lit runway or a dusty road ... With Lady Gaga, it’s never a question of “why,” but “why not?”

70
AllMusic

Where previous Gaga albums were high-wire acts, Joanne is decidedly earth-bound, a record made by an artist determined to execute only the stunts she knows how to pull off.

70
musicOMH

She may flit from one musical style to another, rather like Madonna has always done, but she never gives anything less than total commitment. The less is more production suits her, and for a first time we get a real and lasting glimpse of Stefani herself.

70
Rolling Stone

Joanne is Lady Gaga's best album in five years, since the disco-stick hair-metal manifesto that was Born This Way.

70
Clash

‘Joanne’ is certainly not the all-conquering opus it was intended to be and will prove divisive, but it remains a daring and exciting record, delivered from one of modern pop’s most unique and singular voices.

69
Pitchfork

Nobody wants to immediately recognize herself in Gaga’s aesthetic; we want her to suggest a path we hadn’t thought of before, to nurture and clarify a beauty we didn’t even realize was there. Joanne feels too self-conscious, an affront to the Gaga of yesteryear—the truest self, after all, isn’t always the quietest.

60
The Arts Desk
These are almost all inoffensive and very listenable songs.
60
The Needle Drop
Lady Gaga's rootsier sound and image on Joanne is a welcome change of pace, though she doesn't always commit to the new direction.
60
Evening Standard
A collection of serious, well-crafted songs.
60
The Independent

This ... effort effectively abandons the electropop dance arrangements of Artpop in favour of more stolidly rockist fare, as if pursuing rock’n’roll authenticity. And to a certain extent it works.

60
The Guardian

Joanne stumbles a bit, and will be received with bafflement by everyone other than hardcore Little Monsters, but you can’t help admiring her boldness.

60
Slant Magazine
While she may have eschewed the outlandish costumes for now, Gaga has merely replaced them with a different kind of pretense.
60
Time Out London

At times, she commits to her theme too literally: a track called 'John Wayne' (groan) is about ditching boring city guys for 'blue collar' dudes from Republican states. But 'Joanne' also contains some of Gaga's most tender songwriting.

60
Exclaim!

A dearth of memorable melodies makes Joanne's restlessness often feel aimless.

60
DIY

Intentionally overwrought, brash, and totally different to anything she’s ever done before, Lady Gaga’s ‘Joanne’ doesn’t quite nail the artistic frankness she’s aiming for.

60
PopMatters
It’s different, it’s unfocused, it’s interesting, and—make no bones about it—it’s far from revolutionary. It’s less a reinvention than it is a casual reboot, and even if its pleasures are modest, it’s still a fascinating document from a diva who refuses to remain in one place.
50
The Sydney Morning Herald
It is over-burdened with significance and under-served by pop zest.
40
NOW Magazine

With producers Mark Ronson and Blood Pop on deck, the songs sound expertly crafted. The melodies are simple and give Gaga plenty of room to show off vocally, but the country bar throwback vibe feels staid and conservative.

LukasLima
70

Em "Joanne" encontramos Lady Gaga mais intimista, após toda a polêmica do "ARTPOP" e seus projetos paralelos, Gaga começou a trabalhar num álbum mais pessoal e íntimo. Além de ser seu segundo nome, "Joanne" também é o nome da tia falecida da cantora, da qual ela nunca chegou a conhecer, e ela dedicou esse disco à tia Joanne colocando o nome dela no disco.
Em seu lírico, ela abordou sobre ... read more

AdamPerez
100

Great album!!

plowo
76

rainha do rock, country, pop e do mundo!!!!!

Favorites:Diamond Heart, A-YO, John Wayne and Come to Mama.

lucidreiji
84

Diamond Heart - 9
A-YO - 7
Joanne - 8
John Wayne - 8
Dancin' in Circles - 8
Perfect Illusion - 8
Million Reasons - 9
Sinner's Prayer - 8
Come to Mama - 9
Hey Girl - 10
Angel Down - 10
Grigio Girls - 7
Just Another Day - 9

gtod
80

After ARTPOP, her reputation was kinda not the best and even though this isn’t her strongest album, at the time, this felt like a change in the right direction for her, like she knew exactly what she was doing when she made this. This album and her Sound of Music performance led to other big things like Super Bowl national anthem, A Star Is Born and the Super Bowl half time rebuilt her reputation and made her the icon and legend she is today. This album was the start of that and show ... read more

serjtankian
60

serj tankian approved

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Track List

1Diamond Heart
3:30
81
2A-YO
3:27
74
3Joanne
3:16
82
4John Wayne
2:54
82
5Dancin' in Circles
3:27
75
6Perfect Illusion
3:02
82
7Million Reasons
3:25
86
8Sinner's Prayer
3:43
74
9Come to Mama
4:14
69
10Hey Girl
4:15
73
11Angel Down
3:49
77
Total Length: 39 minutes
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Added on: September 15, 2016